This application makes reference to, incorporates the same herein, and claims all benefits accruing under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7119 from an application for AUTOMATIC VOICE ANNOUNCEMENT APPARATUS AND CONTROL METHOD THEREFOR earlier filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on the Dec. 31, 1997 and there duly assigned Ser. No. 80552/1997.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic voice announcement apparatus for offering an automatic voice announcement message to a subscriber connected to an exchange, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for sending an automatic voice announcement message to a subscriber from the beginning of the message.
2. Description of the Related Art
An exchange including an automatic voice announcement apparatus has an automatic voice announcement service function. Such an exchange automatically sends an announcement message to subscribers without an operator or other person answering a call. However, in an earlier automatic voice announcement apparatus, an announcement message is sent to a subscriber not from the beginning of the entire message but from the next part of the message which has been sent to a previous subscriber. Hence, the subscriber must listen to the message repeatedly in order to confirm the contents of the message.
Such an automatic voice announcement apparatus includes message memories, look-up counters connected respectively to the message memories, time-set circuits connected respectively to the look-up counters, a port controller connected to the message memories, a serial to parallel converter and a parallel to serial converter. The port controller controls the overall operation during the recording and playback of a voice message. The serial to parallel converter transmits voice data to the message memories so that the voice message can be sequentially recorded in the message memories under the control of the port controller. The parallel to serial converter transmits the voice data read from the message memories to a voice transmitter under the control of the port controller during the playback of the voice message.
If there is a voice message recording command from a high-level processor to the port controller, the port controller controls the ports of the message memories so that the voice data input through the serial to parallel converter can be sequentially recorded in the message memories. Then, the voice data input through the serial to parallel converter is recorded in the message memories. The look-up counter and the time-set circuit connected to the message memory to be recorded operate to count each address sequentially.
If there is a voice message playback command from the high-level processor to the port controller, the port controller plays back the voice data recorded in the message memory through the parallel to serial converter. The look-up counter counts the address of the message memory sequentially. During the playback of the voice message, the end point of the voice message which has been sent to the previous subscriber is stored in the time-set circuit. If a new subscriber is connected, the automatic voice announcement message beginning at the end point (end address) stored in the time-set circuit is sent to the new subscriber. If a partial message has been sent to a previous subscriber, the address of the beginning of the message is stored in the time-set circuit. If a new subscriber is connected, the voice message beginning from the middle of the message is played back. Therefore, the new subscriber must listen to the message once more in order to confirm the entire contents of the announcement message.
Thus, the automatic voice announcement apparatus plays back the automatic announcement message not from the beginning of the message but from the end point of the message which has been sent to a previous subscriber. Therefore, the subscriber must repeatedly listen to the message in order to confirm the contents of a complete message. Consequently, the time during which the subscriber is connected to the exchange is lengthened and thus the exchange is inefficiently managed.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an automatic voice announcement apparatus which can send an automatic voice announcement message to subscribers from the beginning of the message and a control method therefor.
There is provided, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention, an automatic voice announcement apparatus including: a message receiving memory for receiving a voice message recording and playback commands from a high-level processor; a digital signal processor for receiving the commands from the message receiving memory, and for generating control signals for recording and playing back a voice message; a message controller for sequentially recording a voice message in corresponding areas in response to a voice message recording control signal from the digital signal processor, and for playing back the voice message from the beginning of the message by selecting a specific channel in response to a voice message playback control signal from the digital signal processor; and a voice memory having a plurality of cards to which channels are assigned, the voice message being stored in one of the plurality of channels.
There is provided, in accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a method for controlling an automatic voice announcement message in an automatic voice announcement apparatus of an exchange including a message receiving memory, a digital signal processor, a message controller, and a voice memory consisting of a plurality of channels. The method includes the steps of: applying voice message recording and playback command signals received from a high-level processor to the digital signal processor; generating voice message recording and playback control signals; recording a voice message in a specific channel of the voice memory in response to the voice message recording control signal; counting a recording time of the voice message and storing start and end points of the voice message; recording a plurality of voice messages in different channels of the voice memory and storing start and end points of the respective voice messages; and playing back the voice message recorded in the selected channel of the voice memory from the beginning of the message by using the start and end points of the message.